


aurora borealis

by 3stir



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternative Universe - Epilogue/Post Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epilogue Spoilers, Headcanon: void!seraph sorey, M/M, Sormik Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 11:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20208868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3stir/pseuds/3stir
Summary: Sorey's not used to this harsh winter. Mikleo helps him warm up with his newfound Seraphic Artes.





	aurora borealis

**Author's Note:**

> Idk I think I accidentally combined most of the week's prompts for this {pink tulip, white lilac, anemone, purple hyacinth, narcissus, and dandelion}. I've honestly been lowkey simmering to write something alone these lines in a long post-canon epic for Zestiria, but... it's been years and I'm never going to get around to it. I'm not cut out for longfic. ^^;
> 
> Hope you enjoy this small contribution to SorMik Week!

His skin buzzes with unkempt energy as they make their way out of the underground labyrinth. The air is crisper nearer the cave opening, where the outside world awaits. And somehow the shifting air grows colder and colder, leaving him more and more acutely aware of how the blood in his veins begs to scream out into the night. In his old Shepherd’s regalia, the same cloak and ceremonial sword he had been wearing when he— 

Well, the outfit is certainly more suited to temperate climates. To wandering around lost in the base of an active volcano. His one fingerless glove and meager leather arm guards won’t keep him nearly warm enough in the North.

He sighs shakily. The breath clouds around his face as he tries to subtly curl further into himself.

“Sorey,” he turns immediately to the voice that edges on familiar, on a tone that hits so close to home but holds a bit too much lingering fatigue to hit true. “Can I show you something? Give me your hands.”

Mikleo stands a step behind him, gloved hands open and welcoming. He’s taller now, just a little, just enough for Sorey to feel the wrongness whenever he looks at him. Sharp, pale features are all the same, though. The man standing here with him still looks like Mikleo, still sounds enough like Mikleo, still certainly feels like Mikleo in the way he carries himself and the aura he exudes. But his hair is long, elegantly tied with a leather band high on his head. His cheeks are a little thinner, and his gaze is a little more guarded.

Sorey’s heart absolutely  _ aches _ .

He places his hands in Mikleo’s without further comment. He flinches at the rough cold of the leather gloves, and he doesn’t really understand why until Mikleo’s fingers grip him reassuringly.

For some reason, he had expected to feel warm skin and familiar callouses.

He shakes off the strange thoughts and focuses on Mikleo, on the way those violet eyes linger a bit too long on their joined hands. With a large breath he looks up at Sorey, meets his gaze with a reassuring smile.

_ Maotelus above _ , Sorey hasn’t even been back for a full day and he’s already messing everything up— 

“First, close your eyes and breathe,” Mikleo says easily. “You’ve got that look on your face like you’re trying to date a redundant mural. It’s still just me, okay? You can trust me.”

“I’ve always trusted you,” Sorey whispers before he can think better of it. His eyes sting from a gust of winter wind behind him, and he closes his eyelids harshly at the onslaught.

“I know,” Mikleo replies just as softly. It shifts something heavy in Sorey’s chest. “Now breathe.”

Sorey empties his mind with the biting air he draws into his lungs. He takes the exercise slowly and deliberately, keeping the tangible contrast between the subtle warmth bleeding through Mikleo’s gloves and the specks of snow that fall on the backs of his hands close to his chest. Warmth fills him as the air stretches his torso and lingers.

He tangles all of these small worries into that warmth, and he lets it all go in a long exhale through his nose. He shivers a bit as the cold air ghosts at the tiny hairs at the back of his neck, but Mikleo just holds on tighter to his hands. Grounds him.

“Good, good,” Mikleo hums. The tone is soft and gentle, and it draws a shy smile from the depths of Sorey’s heart. “Sorey, can you focus on your artes for me? Remember that feeling, of gathering energy from nature and holding it within yourself. Like we used to practice with Lailah, before.”

Sorey does remember. A lifetime ago, when their little family of Malevolence purifiers had just been the three of them, they had travelled Lakehaven Heights at length. Camping between the rolling hills, under a warm and star-lit sky, they had worked to strengthen their connections with nature. With their artes. Under Lailah’s gentle direction, they had both learned so much more in a handful of weeks than a lifetime spent reading and daydreaming.

He remembers the feeling well. He recalls the meditation in returning to the basics, in reading and gathering and accepting the flow of energy all around them.

Mikleo gently brings his hands to clasp one over the other, in the traditional way, and Sorey concentrates. His breaths mellow to match Mikleo’s, and the winter winds that surround them fade away. His artes gather in a swirling point deep in his navel, caught up in his center of gravity. Like second-nature, he holds it still, condenses it into something small but precious. A glow in the darkness. Hope amongst a sea of aching despair.

And when he focuses on it, he’s not cold any more.

“Do you understand?” Mikleo asks, bringing Sorey back from the furthest recesses of his introspection.

Sorey nods when he opens his eyes, ready to assure Mikleo and thank him profusely for the welcomed little trick to keeping warm. He hesitates when he notices the softest pale light filling the space around them, emanating from his loosely joined hands.

“I’d thought for sure you’d have Fire, honestly,” Mikleo comments when Sorey slowly opens his hands and gazes at the small speck of light hanging in the space between. It looks like a firefly in the furthest reaches of the Aroundlight Forest, like a tiny pin prick on a canvas.

“Fire?” Sorey asks, but he doesn’t look away from the little light he’s apparently created.

Mikleo hums, and a nostalgic sort of painful smile grows across his lips. “The others knew you’d have this, if you ever came back as a Seraph. It makes sense, when you think about it. Blessed by Maotelus, you were certain to be a Void Seraph, as rare as they are.”

Mikleo hesitates with the rest of his explanation, takes a second to quell the rampant emotions that threaten to show in his calm recollections. Sorey waits patiently for him to continue. Would wait forever for Mikleo, always, just as Mikleo had waited for Sorey.

In the end, that’s what really matters. No matter how much Mikleo had grown or the small ways in which he had changed… he had still waited for Sorey to return. They were here now. Together again.

With another long breath, Mikleo continues, “I’d argue every time. That you are too warm to be anything but— “

He loses his words in a wide grin. His eyes mist, like they had earlier in the ruins when Sorey had caught him, had barely rescued him from that trap. He’s about to cry, but he looks so happy. Overwhelmed and overjoyed.

“B-but a little light suits you just as well. Like the candles we used to read by, late at night in Elysia.”

Before he can think better of it, Sorey moves. He throws his arms around Mikleo and pulls him close. The little light fades back into the wind, but neither of them pay the action much mind. Instead they breathe in the feeling of each other, the way their bones nearly ache to know one another all over again. Mikleo chokes on a breath while nuzzling into Sorey’s unkempt hair. Sorey gasps with his nose in the crook of Mikleo’s neck, like a man left drowned in darkness and uncertainty.

“I’m home, Mikleo,” he says, desperate to live in the moment with his one and only.

“I love you, Sorey,” Mikleo answers, like the words have plagued him in his every waking moment.

Sorey chokes on his own sob, completely overcome with every heavy emotion he has ever had for the beautiful Seraph in his arms.

Because that’s it, isn’t it?

Sorey absolutely, unabashedly, wholly and truly loves him, too.


End file.
